ABSTRACT
Wherever we have a plural of any of the words mentioned in this section, we may speak of a" plural raised to the second power," e.g. decads, hundreds, two elevens (two teams of eleven each), sixpences, crowds, etc. But the same term, a plural raised to the second power, may be applied to other cases as well, e.g. E. children, where the plural ending -en is added to the original pI. childer, possibly at first with the idea that several sets (families) of children were meant, as in the Sc. dialectal shuins mentioned by Murray as meaning the shoes of several people, while shuin means one pair only (Dial. 01 the Southern Oounties, 161; see also MEG II, 5. 793). This logical meaning of a double plural (a plural of a plural) cannot, however, be supposed to have been in all cases present to the minds of those who created double plurals: often they were probably from the very first simple redundancies, and at any rate they are now felt as simple plurals in such cases as children, kine, breeches, etc. Breton has plurals of plurals: bugeZ child, pI. bugale, but bugaZe-ou 'plusieurs bandes d'enfants,' loer' stocking,' pI. lerou 'pair of stockings,' but lereier ' several pairs of stockings,' daou-lagad-ou, , eyes of several persons' (H. Pedersen, GKS 2. 71). We have a. double plural in form, but not in sense, in G. tranen, ziihren ' tears.' Here the old plural form trii.ne (trehene), zahre (.;:iihere) has now become a singular.
